Sacramento County
Biographies
JOHN SOTO
FREITAS
JOHN SOTO FREITAS, usually called John Soto, was born in one of the Azores, a subject of Portugal, in January, 1823, being a son of Manuel and Vittoria Louisa Soto Freitas. At the age of nineteen John Soto went to sea in an American whaler, which arrived in New Bedford, Massachusetts, after a four years, cruise. He went on a second whaling voyage lasting also four years. After eight years thus spent he was engaged about a year in coasting voyages between Boston and New York, and in 1853 sailed from New York around the Horn to San Francisco, where he was discharged. He then went to mining at Nigger Hill above Folsom, and continued in that business eight years, with a net result in cash of $2,000. In 1862 he bought a ranch in Yolo County, which he sold in 1878; and in October, 1878, he bought his present place of 131 acres about nine miles south of Sacramento on the river road. He raises vegetables and barley for the market and also a few colts, besides fruit and other necessaries, including a few cows and poultry for family use. In February, 1863, Mr. Soto was married in Sacramento to Francisca Amelia, also a native of the Azores, a daughter of Francis and Margareta Teresa Dutra. Her father is still living, aged seventy-seven. Mr. Soto’s father died at the age of sixty-six, but his mother lived to be eighty-six. Mr. and Mrs. Soto have had sixteen children, of whom they lost only the first born, at the age of twenty months. The survivors in order of their birth are as follows: Mary, John, Amelia, Frances, Nancy, Manuel, Antonio, Rosie, Minnie, Annie, Victoria, Belle, Joseph, Gloria, Clara. Mary Soto is the wife of Anton Ferandes, living in Yolo County, and has three children: Mary, Antonio, and a girl baby. Frances Soto is married to Joses Pereira — “Joe Perry” of Marysville. They have one son, John Joseph. With this large family, Mr. and Mrs. Soto, with a magnanimity truly admirable, extend hospitality to other dependent kindred, of whom one or more may always be found on the Soto ranch.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of
Sacramento County, California. Pages 681-682. Lewis
Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.